


A Madness Most Discreet

by aactionjohnny



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Time, Love Confessions, M/M, One Shot, References to Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 10:42:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20329810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale go to the premier of Romeo and Juliet. The play has such a profound effect on Aziraphale that it leads to them giving in to their desires.





	A Madness Most Discreet

**Author's Note:**

> listen im just tired and i wanted them to fuck and i love shakespeare and their outfits from that fuckign globe theater scene

It is a hot, golden afternoon in the Globe Theater, the sunlight concentrated within that small circle, like an ant beneath glass. Crowley is thankful for his miracles, for being able to stave off the inconvenience of human sweat and instead enjoy the delightful rays of light, how they bounce off the soft leather of his shoes. How it seems to make his companion glow in the daylight.

The sunlight is his excuse for saying so. In truth, Aziraphale glows even in the dead of night. 

The place is packed, much to Aziraphale’s delight. William’s, too, though he stands in the wings running nervous fingers through his hair, certain to pull it out from the root if he gets any more worked up. It is the premier performance of his latest tragedy, a sad little love story about two young people who die for their love. Crowley knows he ought to like it; it has everything a good demonic tale needs. People being stupid, families hating one another. Poison. Sex. But he dreads it. He dreads the tears on the actors’ faces and the empty feeling he’s always left with in the end. 

William makes eye contact with both of them, attempting to smile through his anxiety, and they both wave. Aziraphale’s is friendly and encouraging, Crowley’s teasing and snide.

“Oh, I do hope it’s well-received,” Aziraphale says. “Made the mistake of inviting quite a few people to one of his histories, last time. I adore them, you know, but no one likes to be reminded--”

“It’ll be fine, Aziraphale,” he says, cutting him off, giving him a stern look of annoyance. Always he is cruel, that way. He pretends to find his angel a leech on his time and heart. “It’s a love story, right? Or at least, the crowd will see two people kissing and decide that it is, and then love it.”

“I suppose you would know,” Aziraphale says, haughty, with a raised brow and his eyes lightly shut.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a demon, aren’t you? I’m sure you push people into bed with one another all the time.”

“Not really my area,” he admits. “It’s too easy to tempt people with the, er...pleasures of the flesh.” He stretches the words, annunciates every syllable with such drama you’d think he were on the stage. “Humans are going to do _ that _ no matter what I do.”

“Yes, they are,” Aziraphale says, pursing his lips like he knows something. He’s no fool; they’ve both been around for centuries, mingling with the humans, adopting their customs and dalliances. But still, sex has never been Crowley’s priority, no matter how many times he’s been...propositioned. He’s a demon, and he knows he oughtn’t care about morality, but sleeping with humans always seemed like something even a demon shouldn’t do. He can’t say the same for his peers, of course. That, and whenever faced with the opportunity, he couldn’t find it himself to  _ want _ . He tells himself he does not know what longing feels like. 

“Oh, Crowley, it’s starting!” Aziraphale says, excited, tapping him on the arm, and Crowley can’t help but smile, so endeared at his enthusiasm. At the twinkle in his gleaming eyes, at the way his skin wrinkles when he’s delighted. 

-

The Globe is bathed in applause, the audience cheering at the end of the performance, the actors all on stage, joining hands and grinning. The two young men who played the titular characters stand at the front, their faces tear-soaked, arms draped over one another’s shoulders as if they are drunk. Crowley realizes, then, that perhaps their skill has little to do with the brilliance of their performance.

Beside him, he hears sniffling. Aziraphale’s face, too, is shining with tears as he claps. It is not the look of someone moved by art; he has seen Aziraphale in awe of art’s brilliance before, and this is nothing like that. This is devastation. This is the look of a man absolutely gutted by tragedy, his heart split open and bleeding down his chest. Crowley’s lips part and his smile fades entirely. He wraps his fingers around Aziraphale’s arm and urges him out of the crowd, into the wings, backstage as the actors begin to filter through.

The sun is beginning to set, casting the already dark hallway in a void of night. Silhouetted against the orange and pink sky, they stand just out of view.

“What’s the matter?” Crowley asks, his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders. “You didn’t cry at the last gloomy one--”

“It’s different this time, Crowley,” he insists, rubbing one of his ruffled sleeves beneath his eyes.

“Oh, don’t tell me you fell for that ‘love story’ nonsense, angel--”

“Is it really such nonsense, Crowley?”

“They were young and stupid!”

“Yes! Quite stupid indeed!” he says in a harsh whisper, aiming to hide their quarrel from any passersby. “That...doesn’t mean it isn’t heartbreaking, Crowley. I like to believe they could have been together, and been happy, if things were different.”

“Oh do you?”

“Yes...if they hadn’t been so…” He fidgets, wringing his hands together, and then looks up at Crowley with his eyes red and his lips trembling. “Star-crossed…”

He is quick to want to rebut, to come up with some demonic platitude to try and argue him down, but he comes up short, nothing but breath escaping his lips.

“...I suppose you’ve got some idea what that’s like, right?” he asks, quiet and tender, thankful for his dark glasses to hide the sincerity he knows is radiating from his face. Aziraphale opens his mouth, that same eager protesting as Crowley, but he too, produces nothing but a sigh.

“Yes. I have.”

“Well…” Crowley begins, clearing his throat, looking then to the ground between their feet. My, they’re standing close. “It doesn’t always have to end in double suicide, angel.”

“I suppose not…”

“Sometimes, when you’ve got things going against you, you can just…” He trails off, looking back and forth, searching for any excuse not to go on. “...keep it a secret.”

Farther back in the wings, the two main actors are giggling in a storm of giddy love. Juliet, so he will be called, wraps his arms around Romeo as they fall against the wooden wall, and the sound of their lips smacking echoes right through Crowley’s ears and heart.

“Maybe you’re right. You can come up with some sort of...plan.”

Crowley steps closer to him, regaining his smile.

“An _ arrangement _ , if you will.”

“It is unlike an angel to be sneaky, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, though he doesn’t back down, simply tilts his head coquettishly, ever ready to challenge Crowley with his wiles.

“Isn’t it?” he parries. “Have you gotten around to telling God what happened to your sword, angel?”

“It keeps slipping my mind.”

“Convenient.”

“Ever-so.”

“I think that’s what I like best about you, Aziraphale.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re a real bastard.”

They are nose-to-nose, alone now, the amorous couple having scurried away to some other secret corner of the theater.

“And you…” Aziraphale says, his stance softening, placing his hands on Crowley’s chest. “Are a sweet, sweet man.”

Crowley grins through a playful growl, and his fingers curl into the fabric of Aziraphale’s coat, possessive and desperate as if he could tear the thing off. Or whisk him away, into the stars, where no one can catch them or scold them or tell them not to be near one another. Oh, to be  _ near _ him, even that feels like the most sinful pleasure of all. He intoxicates like art and wine. He smells always of fresh powder and a spring day. He makes the sun shine and the flowers bloom, even in the presence of a no-good demon like himself.

“ _ The sweetest honey is loathsome in its own deliciousness. And in the taste destroys the appetite. Therefore, love moderately _ …” Crowley quotes, teasing, daring him, his breath warm on Aziraphale’s lips.

“...never,” he promises.

Never will their love be moderate. It has never stood the chance to be. From the moment they met in the Garden, they have been fated to this. Maybe not here, backstage in the Globe. Maybe years down the line, somewhere else, under some other roof, spurred on by some other crying, but no matter what, it would happen. 

And  _ oh _ , when it happens, it is far sweeter than Crowley has imagined in his many dreams. Is it any wonder he should adore sleeping so? When he is asleep his mind is free of reality, unindentured to the rules of heaven and hell that keep him from his love, standing always on the other shore.

He has truly never kissed before. He has been saving it. He is new and uncertain but once their lips touch it is as simple as breathing. Breathing, how difficult it becomes when your lungs are flattened with awe at how damned _ good _ it feels. It is a buzzing that begins in his toes and hurdles through him like an arrow, piercing through his heart and tearing him to pieces. His elbows quake with the feeling, and he holds fast to Aziraphale’s waist to keep himself steady, grounded, upright. And his angel, how he seems to collapse in his arms, threading his soft fingers into his long, red hair and arching his back like someone ready to faint. Crowley keeps him from falling, holding him up with his thin but strong arms, bending down to make up for how his love seems to wilt to the floor.

Their jaws ease, their lips part all the more, and they softly hum into one another’s mouths, a wordless agreement that  _ yes _ , this is what they want. This is stronger than heaven and hell and it doesn’t matter how they are punished for it. They have spent so long among the humans, they have seem them fall in love countless times with a sort of detached envy. But always has Crowley thought it foolish to love. At least, to love anyone but Aziraphale. There is simply no one else worth loving in the conceivable universe. So yes, Romeo and Juliet are fools, but only because dear William cannot know how joyful it is to be kissed by an angel in the darkened wing of a theater.

They part briefly, catching their heavy breath, their noses touching, Aziraphale’s hands on Crowley’s flushed cheeks, both of them unable to stop their grinning.

“How  _ long _ , Crowley?” Aziraphale asks.

“How long what?” Crowley says, punctuating his words with soft kisses along the edge of that ruffled collar.

“How long have you felt this way?”

“You first,” he insists, boldly running his fingers down the many buttons of Aziraphale’s coat. Testing the waters, tempting himself to a little human fun.

“Very well,” he agrees, mercifully, wrapping his arms around Crowley’s neck as he continues his gentle, feverish love. “If you must know.”

“I must…”

“Rome…”

“Rome?” Crowley asks, pulling back, smiling at him devilishly.

“I was drunk on wine, and I blamed it on that. Until I woke up, and I was sober, and I still adored you.”

Crowley feels his chest sink in, his ribs imploding into his heart with the glorious devastation of his angel’s confession.

“Now you,” Aziraphale says, and Crowley takes him by the hand and walks farther into the backstage area, past the hung costumes and the tattered scripts.

“From the beginning,” he admits, snapping his fingers, opening the creaky door to the dressing room. He’s happy to find it empty, that the two young lovers have sought out their own place to sin. “From the beginning…”

“Oh, darling…” Aziraphale breathes, his fingers spread over Crowley’s hair, his neck, down to his chest, around his back. “Er...are we to…? I mean, that is…”

“What?” he asks, though already he begins to unbutton the front of Aziraphale’s brocade coat. 

“It’s just that, well, I’ve never--”

“Me neither, angel.”

“Oh…”

“Told you, not really my area.”

“M...mine either.”

They kiss again, ignoring their uncertainty for the time being, in favor of that new, sweet pleasure. Crowley knows he could be happy, just doing this, just tasting his lips for hours, or an eternity, gaining more and more understanding of humans’ preoccupation with the act. But to his delighted surprise, Aziraphale brings it up again.

“I want to know what it’s like. With you, Crowley. And then only with you, forever. And neither of us has to drink poison or tell anyone or...or...anything. Just…” His voice grows weak and wavering again, and Crowley is quick to shut him up with another soft kiss, and then a soft sweep of his thumb beneath his weeping eyes.

“No one has to know. We’re not stupid like Romeo and Juliet, remember?”

“Ah...we’re much older and far more stupid.”

They dissolve into laughter, and another long, unbroken kiss. Crowley’s human body is reeling, trembling, desperate with want, for the first time in his very long life. He finishes unbuttoning Aziraphale’s coat, spreading the lapel, dragging it down his shoulders and his arms, parting the ruffled collar and letting it fall to the dusty ground beneath their feet. Aziraphale, too, is bold, making quick work of removing Crowley’s own coat, absconding with his undershirt, running his fingers along the waist of his trousers. 

It comes so naturally, it seems. As if having a body comes with the knowledge of the act of love. Or, maybe, he is only eased into it because it is Aziraphale. He can only follow instinct with this man alone, this angel. Never anyone else. There is no one else worth loving. There is no one else worth touching.

And they touch so perfectly. Their bare chests pressed together, they envelop one another in a fury of limbs, Crowley lifting Aziraphale onto the old vanity that is wedged into the corner of the dressing room, and he snaps his fingers to lock the door. Aziraphale gasps at the confident gesture, leaning back into the dirty mirror like he is too weak to stay upright, and he lets his knees part. Crowley burrows between them, hands surrounding Aziraphale’s rear, possessive and needy. He kisses along his neck as he tugs his trousers down, past the edge of the vanity, down to the floor, and he’s pleased to feel him, hard and warm, against his palm. Indeed do they imitate the humans at their very best. He knew it. Knew Aziraphale could not help but be complete and correct in his anatomy, so much does he seem fascinated with the body of man. Crowley wills himself to measure up, to be equipped to do as the humans do.

Desperate, half-clothed, sloppy with his trousers around his ankles and Aziraphale’s knees bent up toward the mirror, he presses himself against him as if trying it out.

“C-can I…?” he stammers, overcome with the twitching pleasure of anticipation, that burning, empty feeling in his belly he has felt only when waking from one of his more lewd and lucid dreams. 

“I beg of you,” Aziraphale whines, baring down some, pushing back against him as if urging him in. His pleading spurs him on, thrills him like nothing ever has, and he slides himself in with a grateful groan. “Oh-- oh darling--”

“Hell’s sake…” he marvels, astounded. That anything could feel so good, that anything could be so perfect. “You’re perfect, angel,” he mumbles, into his neck, beginning the steady work of tilting his hips, driving into him with ease, breathing heavy and struggling not to weep at just how wonderful it all truly is. Better than his sleep, better than even his most arousing dream, better than original sin, than wine, than anything he could imagine. His body shudders at the sensation, and his mind reels at the sound of Aziraphale’s gasping, moaning, whining voice, at how his fingers dig into his back like claws into prey.

And he  _ is _ subject to him. He is slavish. He is utterly at Aziraphale’s disposal, dispensing with the miracles, sweating like a man ought to in the throes of passion, gripping hard onto his hips as if hell itself might pull him away, down to his doom.

He cares not. Let them try. He would defy Satan Himself for this elation.

“Please,” Aziraphale begs, squeezing him between his thighs, urging him deeper, deeper still. “I want to know what it feels like, Crowley. For you to...well--ah!” He hasn’t the composure to ask properly, and Crowley feels the sting of pride crawl up his spine. That he has left his angel speechless and senseless...it thrills him beyond the mere padding of his ego. It drives him to the end. It pushes him beyond a threshold he has never before encountered. From him there comes a miraculous flood, all hot and wet and thick, into his lover, onto the vanity, and he nearly shouts, so strong is the feeling. As if he is ceasing to exist, going out in one large burst of joy, one last delirious jolt of star-crossed love.

Aziraphale, too, seems enthralled, holding onto him with all his might, a deep heavy noise from his throat as he takes it all in, keeps him inside until the very last drop, relaxing only once he’s sure he’s spent.

He leans his back against the mirror as Crowley catches his breath. 

“My goodness…” Aziraphale says.

“Wouldn’t call it that, really,” Crowley chides, gentle and loving, and he leans forward to press his lips to Aziraphale’s sweat-soaked forehead. “You’ve been quite bad, for an angel.”

“Well,” Aziraphale says, ever the contrarian. “Isn’t it unlike a demon to make someone so full of joy?”

Again, they laugh, curling into one another, into a long, tender embrace. In that dressing room they stay, holding one another close, knowing they have much to talk about. But all Crowley wants to do is stay there, being quite foolish indeed, whispering stories of all the times he ought to have told him how dearly he loved him. Defying the stars as they always do.

**Author's Note:**

> the file was "snekspeare.doc" so thats what's going on with me
> 
> plz comment/find me on twitter @ peebnutbutter for my fandom nonsense


End file.
